Ludwig van Beethoven: I cannot hear them, but I know they are making a hash of it. What do you think? Music is… a dreadful thing. What is it? I don’t understand it. What does it mean?

Anton Felix Schindler: It – it exalts the soul.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Utter nonsense. If you hear a marching band, is your soul exalted? No, you march. If you hear a waltz, you dance. If you hear a mass, you take communion. It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice. It is like hypnotism.

(Immortal Beloved, via IMDB)

I’ve been thinking about this quote. It’s stayed with me a long time. The power of music to bring people together is also a trance-like power. Is music inherently political? If it is, then it must be similar to propaganda, putting people in a suggestible state, getting them to lower their guard. It also brings people together in a common experience.

People use music to numb their pain (physical or emotional), feel better, heal wounds, forget worries. Or they use it to let out pent up frustration, release energy. Music purges. But what is it really purging? That’s the question I’m most interested in. I think the answer (at least sometimes) is, it’s purging revolutionary potential.